He even once said he would be interested in trading his workers with machines, because machines “never take a vacation, they never show up late, there’s never a slip-and-fall, or an age, sex, or race discrimination case.”

But perhaps the ultimate betrayal comes from the fact that Puzder, whose confirmation hearing is set for February 2, believes that trickle-down economics is somehow good for the economy.

As small-business owners in Portland, my husband and I are appalled that President Donald Trump has nominated Andrew Puzder, a millionaire fast food CEO, to lead the U.S. Department of Labor. Puzder’s record shows a disregard not just for workers, but also all small-business owners and responsible employers who believe in safe, fair workplaces.

We have owned a small, independent bookstore with two locations in Maine since 1987. Our staff includes amazing full-time employees who have worked for us from seven to 29 years. We have always operated our business with the knowledge that our success was dependent on the dedication and motivation of our employees. Unlike Puzder, we treat our employees fairly with dignity and respect.

Small business and communities benefit from the key workplace protections that Puzder has attacked. Puzder opposes meaningful raises to the minimum wage, arguing it would be harmful to employers. As a small business, our experience matches what the data nationally and in Maine say — paying fair wages boosts business by increasing employee well-being and reducing employee turnover. So we heartily supported raising the minimum wage, first in Portland and then across Maine.

It’s clear that Labor Secretary nominee Andrew Puzder disdains the mission of the nearly 104-year-old agency he is nominated to run. As the steward of workers’ rights, the Department of Labor is charged with ensuring that workers are paid fairly and that their rights to a safe and healthy workplace free of harassment are secure.

Puzder fiercely opposes raising the federal minimum wage, despite the growing income gap and the fact that millions of working families live in poverty. And during his tenure as CEO of CKE Restaurants Holdings Inc., the fast-food empire has racked up an abysmal record of wage violations and sexual harassment. It is no wonder he says he would prefer robots to people on his payroll.

His appointment betrays the trust of those who voted for Trump based on the repeated promise at the heart of his campaign: to help workers who have been left behind.

President Donald Trump’s pick to be the next labor secretary, Andrew Puzder, has “serious conflicts of interest” due to his work for an industry lobby that sued to stop overtime reforms, Senate Democrats said Thursday.

In a letter sent to the nominee and obtained by The Huffington Post, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) told Puzder that the committee overseeing his nomination still had not received his ethics paperwork, and that she expected a “detailed account” of what steps he’d take to avoid conflicts related to overtime regulation.

“If you are confirmed,” wrote Murray, ranking member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, “your participation in any decisions, meetings, or conversations regarding the overtime litigation may put you in violation of legal ethics restrictions and prohibitions against conflicts of interest, raising questions about your ability to manage a key part of the responsibilities of the Secretary of Labor.”

On Thursday, workers at restaurants owned by CKE restaurants, the chain where Trump’s Labor Secretary nominee Andy Puzder is CEO, filed 33 complaints against the company.

Their suits include four allegations of sexual harassment, which were filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; 22 complaints of wage and hour violations, which were filed with state departments of labor; and seven unfair labor practices charges, filed with the National Labor Relations Board. They were filed across ten states, including Alabama, California, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia.

“Several months ago my shift-manager asked me for a kiss, and when I said no he told me that unless I started giving him what he wanted, he was going to start taking it,” said Ceatana Cardona, one of the Hardee’s workers involved in the complaints from Tampa, FL, in a statement. But she said the company did nothing when she complained. Another homosexual male Carl’s Jr. worker in Oakland, CA, described being harassed by his manager, who told his coworkers and customers that he “likes boys” and used a feminized version of his name.

Twenty-year old Regina Elsea was employed as a temporary worker in an auto parts plant in Alabama. When she wasn’t working, she was planning her wedding for the summer of 2016. But just two weeks before the big day, her plans came to a horrific end while she was at work. The plant assembly line stopped, and she and three coworkers entered a robotic station to clear a sensor fault. While she was inside the machine, the robot restarted abruptly, crushing her to death.

An investigation by the government’s workplace safety agency, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), found that her tragic death could have been prevented had Regina’s employers followed basic safety precautions. Her employers had never implemented the basic safety procedures, around for decades, to prevent machines from starting up when workers are inside. This is one of the oldest and most basic of all safety rules. In December, OSHA levied more than $2.5 million in fines against the company.

As the Senate gets ready to consider the President Trump’s nomination of Andrew Puzder for U.S. secretary of Labor, it’s important that worker safety issues get the full attention they deserve during his confirmation hearings. Puzder is an outspoken critic of regulations who fails to acknowledge the crucial role that regulations play in saving lives, protecting workers’ health, and even saving businesses money through lower insurance costs, for example. In more than 50 percent of the OSHA investigations in CKE restaurants and franchises since 2000, OSHA has found violations.

The Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s restaurant franchises headed by Andrew Puzder, President Trump’s Labor secretary nominee, are among the nation’s major employers of low-wage workers. As Puzder faces a confirmation hearing scheduled for Feb. 2, it’s proper to examine how much his industry’s employment practices cost the American taxpayer. It’s a bundle.

A 2013 study by the Center for Labor Research and Education at UC Berkeley found that public assistance for front-line fast-food workers costs roughly $7 billion a year. That’s a subset of the $152.8 billion the federal government spends on support for low-wage working families, according to a separate study.

Puzder’s CKE Restaurants, which owns the Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s brands, collects a taxpayer-funded subsidy of about $247 million a year, according to an estimate by the National Employment Law Project. That’s what it takes, NELP said, to “offset poverty wages and keep [CKE’s] low-wage front-line workers and their families from economic disaster.”

On February 2, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee will hold confirmation hearings for Andrew Puzder, Donald Trump’s choice to head the Department of Labor. Puzder is the CEO of CKE Restaurants, which owns Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s fast food restaurants and employs thousands of workers across the country. Throughout his career, he has been an outspoken critic of labor regulations and government programs that provide services to the poor. But lately, Puzder has also backed lobbying tactics that extended beyond politics as usual: until recently, the multi-millionaire CEO belonged to the Job Creators Network, or JCN, a group that helps corporations push anti-regulation messages on employees at work in order to influence their voting preferences, a practice the organization calls “Employer to Employee” (E2E) policy education.

Job Creators Network boasts that the group’s political messaging has the ability to reach more than 60 million employees across the country. In training materials, JCN encourages employers to send their workers a steady stream of emails and letters about policies that affect businesses, as well as to place posters and fliers around the workplace and to stuff paycheck envelopes with political material. The group also advises employers to expose workers to political messaging during break hours and to hold town-hall-style meetings or screen policy videos.